Sour Strips was a character created as part of a small online artist adoptable* collaboration. The theme for this collaboration was candy, so I, of course, had to go with my favourite, sour strips.

The long, sugary strips were my immediate inspiration when choosing a candy. I wanted the strips itself to be the main focal point of this design, so keeping everything else simple was at the back of my mind when brainstorming.

I knew right away I’d make my character’s hair out of the piece of candy, but I wanted it to be obvious it was a sour strip, not just rainbow hair. I utilized the flatness of it to bend & shape it in a way where you can tell her pigtails are flat strips.

With the hair out of the way, I felt the design needed more colour at the bottom to balance it all out. The head was interesting, but not interesting enough on its own. I brought back the strips of rainbow as shoe wraps & brought them all the way up to her knees to really elongate it as much as possible.

With the major focal points out of the way, I moved onto designing a simple yet visually interesting dress, keeping the colour light as to not clash with the vibrancy of the rest of the design. Originally, I had sketched her with a bikini top & skirt, but later on adjusted it to just a dress. As final touches, I brought back the sour strips as small details, such as the bracelets & the belt.

Finally, it’s not a sour strip without the sour. I added a layer of sour sanding on the entirety of her character, & I feel it really ties the whole design together.

*Adoptables are characters an artist creates with the purpose to sell, allowing the buyer to “adopt” the character.